Retirement Benefit Number Twelve

I did not have to drive home last evening.

I was told by a neighbor that the traffic on Route 6 was backed up ten miles or more. What a relief!

I can remember the early morning discussions on the last day of a holiday weekend or any summer Sunday for that matter in years past: if the weather is going to be nice, we should leave early; if the weather is terrible, we can stay until later. Sometimes, when nothing else could be done we would travel along what was called “the service road” for the old Otis Air Force base which parallels Route 6 from Exit 6 to Exit 2. Even this out of the way route would sometimes be backed up! We might also venture down Route 6A to Sandwich and be backed up there.

Now, I don’t give traffic a thought unless I’m flying out of Logan or going to the doctor’s office in Boston. Sundays and Monday holidays are serene. Have another drink, sit back in the cushions on the chaise longue, enjoy the sunset and the last of the sailboats coming home.

The next morning is even better if the weather is swell, like today. No traffic, no lines, nothing to keep an old fella from biking to the beach or taking a little boat ride down a still river.

I’m already home.

You Old Baby

I had one of those epiphanies like St. Paul or that eureka guy except I wasn’t sitting in the tub.

We had a town election here last week. At 6 in the evening the polling place wasn’t very busy but the combined age of all the voters had to be 80. And it hit me as I listened to them all complaining about their taxes outside the door.

Just as we restrict the young before age 18 from voting, we should restrict old people for the last 18 years of their lives. I assume we restrict the young because they do not have the maturity to be counted on to make reasonable choices. They are not adults yet, at least legally.

The very old have passed the age of maturity and re-entered childhood. They say the same thing over and over again like babies. They have no idea where they are or why they went there. They poop in their pants given half a chance. Someone delivers their lunch, drives them to the doctors and helps them bathe.

Now, we don’t know exactly what encompasses each old fart’s last 18 years of life but, like an insurance company, we can use actuarial tables to estimate that. Let’s say no voting after age 70. Then, hopefully, we can stop listening to the whining about fixed incomes or that their children are no longer in school and when they themselves went to school THEY didn’t have computers (forgetting, of course, that no one did), and they never made $35,000 in one year so why should school teachers.

The fact is seniors have never been better off. They have incomes, health care and independent lives. What they are really bitching about is that their taxes, the lowest they have been as a percentage of income since 1958, are cutting into what they need for their weekends at Foxwoods Casino.

I say enough already. You shouldn't be driving or voting!

My Friend

At my age, what is the most appropriate name for the lady you know who is your friend and that you really, really like? She is my age. She is quite cute, smart and independent. She has raised two daughters by herself and they both have done very well. She stills works.

We go for coffee some mornings and talk. Since we are the same age and have raised daughters we have lots in common. We go for drives by the beach the way people used to before gas got to $4 and they all commuted 100 miles to work each day. We have been to a movie and to dinner several times. Sometimes, in rare good weather, we take a walk and talk.

I like her. She’s nice. I asked her to be my girlfriend and she said she would. Recently, she introduced me to a friend of hers as her “BF”. I liked that too but thought “BF” was, perhaps, a little young for us. I also don’t know if it stands for “boyfriend” or “best friend”. It must be “boyfriend” because she clearly has friends from her past who better fit the “best friend” category.

I remember, years ago, an old fellow introducing someone to my mother as “his lady friend” I thought that sounded awful then and I still do. I can’t even begin to get my head around “significant other” except as the result of some sort of condition. “I had a fever so long, I developed a significant other”.

I think of Diann as a girl and she is my friend so I guess I’ll stick with that unless someone has a better word.

Retirement Benefit, Number 49

One of the great benefits of retirement, one I had never considered beforehand, is that I can go to bed as early or as late as I want and get up as early or as late as I feel rested. Last night, for example, I fell asleep around 9 PM and I popped up this morning at about 4:30 AM. Less sleep than my usual 9 or 10 hours but I felt rested and if I tire during the day I can always take a nap.

No worries that I have to be up and sharp early for a Rotary breakfast function or a Chamber of Commerce event. No concerns that I’ll be out late again at a City Council meeting or off to a conference somewhere. It’s really a lot like being a baby again, being retired: eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired. It won’t be long, I suppose before I even revert to the poop in the pants routine!

Hello

When I say “Hello” some people, usually young people but not always, say “Hey”. It leaves me cold. Remember your mother chastising you that “Hay is for horses” or something like that. Is “Hello” so much more difficult to say. And we already have “Hi”. What’s the problem with that? A friend suggests that “Hey” is short for “Hey you”. Still leaves me cold. Sort of the way LOL makes me feel when texting.

As I ride my bike around America I usually say hello to people I pass or people coming the other way. Most say hello back. Two groups that never do: the stick thin semi-pro bicycle riders hunched over their handlebars traveling at 30 miles per hour in their little black one piece suits with the pain of their existence visible on their faces. After all, using breath to say hello might slow them down just enough not to set a new personal best for this run. And besides, I can see them think, you’re not a real bicycle rider. You are beneath me, a mere casual, conversational rider out for a spin, while I am preparing for the Tour du France or something similar in my mind.

The others unable to break off and say hello are the family members embroiled in the bicycling dispute of the day. Dad rented bicycles, money that could have been used to take mother out to eat. Mother is angry. Dad wants to bicycle around the island. Mother hasn’t bicycled since fourth grade. She wonders what’s wrong with the car. Doesn’t she do enough every day, picking up after his skinny ass, without this crap. Where are we going? It’s hot you know. I have to get back and make supper! God, now this old man flies by saying hello. I’ll give you a smack if you don’t shut up! Oops, oops, I’m going off the path…

Hello.

Burning the Koran

I have no idea how many bibles have been burned by crazy people over the years. I do remember evangelical nuts being imprisoned in Middle Eastern countries for bringing bibles into those places. If I was told of a bible burning, I would conclude the burner was a nut. I would not feel compelled to kill innocent people sent to my country to help get us out of the middle ages because some lunatic in Florida with the look of a thug burned a Koran.

The proper response, I think, would be for those Afghani nitwits to burn a bible. Tit for tat. I thought they were good at that. How about all those beheadings and stonings and hands being cut off? Killing innocent people is an indication of just how uncivilized these people we are supposedly helping really are. There is something, I think, deeply, darkly wrong with Islam, some Muslims and Middle Eastern tribe members in general. Constantly excusing this fact is a mistake.

I have no good explanation for why we are fighting in Afghanistan. Clearly, many Afghanis don’t think we should be there. Let’s bring our troops home and let the Afghanis fend for themselves. I’m sure it will continue to be a sad, backward, unlucky place.